As explained in my U.S. Pat. No. 5,582,680, and in my U.S. Pat. No. 6,200,428, filed Mar. 31, 1998, the entire disclosures of which are incorporated by reference into this application, good manufacturing processes, concern for the environment, and changes in environmental practices and regulations all have created additional needs in handling waste fluids after manufacturing and cleaning operations, especially in disposing of water based mixtures containing pollutants such as greases, oils, soaps, heavy metals, road film and carcinogens. Whereas in the past it was acceptable merely to dump such waste liquids in the ground or in sewer systems, current good practices and environmental laws and regulations now severely discourage and/or prohibit such practices. Although very laudable in intent, the result can be very costly, especially to businesses who must use substantial quantities of water in their operations, as for example to clean buildings, vehicles and other machines, which will result in wastewater containing greases, oils, minute metallic and other particles, and detergents. Each of the aforementioned patent and co-pending application describes and claims an apparatus operated on the evaporation principle and which is relatively inexpensive to manufacture, simple and safe to operate, and relatively more efficient in the active removal of non-volatile fluids and contaminants from wastewater. I now have invented an improvement to such apparatus which is compact and especially useful in the treatment and reduction of wash and rinse water resulting from the cleaning and or mopping of buildings, vehicles and machinery, including especially the large amounts of wastewater generated by cleaning large areas of high trafficked floors in commercial and industrial facilities using power scrubbing equipment.
The apparatus is compact and easily moved within a facility, and it uses an environmentally safe heat transfer fluid and an optional disposable liner to contain the wastes remaining after evaporation.